The new series does it again with the third episode: The Unquiet
Dead. Having seen what the series can do in a modern day and
futuristic setting, the creators now have an opporunity to show how they
recreate the past! The Victorian period has always been a strong story
telling location for the series, so it is not surprising that they chose
to make this their first trip into the past. And the use of ghosts and
walking dead fit perfectly with the atmosphere of the story.

I am beginning to get used to the elements of the show now,
particularly when it comes to the Doctor and Rose. Rose is turning out to
be a very likeable companion and certainly gives the Doctor a run for his
money when she starts arguing with his latest plan. If only he had
listened to her! I'm still finding it hard to put Christopher Ecceleston's
take on the Doctor into words. He seems to be a wide-eyed, giggling child
and then a dark, brooding outcast. He seems to combine Tom Baker with
Davision and McCoy. But I am certainly beginning to warm to his Doctor.
Pity he is planning to leave at the end of the season!

A word about the opening titles. Well, more in the Doctor's words:
"Fantastic!" The jazzy theme hits the right note of adventure coupled with
the exciting image of the TARDIS being buffeted about as it blasts it's
way through the chaos of the time tunnel. And the way it explodes onto the
screen after a "What the heck" prelude moment is perfect.

The use of Charles Dickens in this story is also nice. Although it is a
little risky to have the Doctor actually meet an historical figure,
Dickens works wonderfully here. He seems to be a combination of Litefoot
and Jago from The Talons of Weng-Chiang. He has the
pompous self-importance of Jago, and the courageous heroism of Litefoot.
One of my favorite scenes of the episode is when the Doctor steals both
Dickens AND his carriage and while in hot pursuit of the villains,
proceeds to explain to Dickens how he is such a huge fan of his. Usually,
if the Doctor meets an historical figure, they have already met and are
good friends. Here, we see what it is like for the Doctor to make friends
for the first time with an historical figure! The use of Christmas Carol
imagery throughout the episode is also nicely done.

The villains of the story are intriguing. Beings that can travel along
gas lines, and inhabit the body of the dead. The scene in the morgue where
they kill one of the characters and then immediately take over his newly
dead corpse is chilling and really makes this nemesis scary. And the fact
that the Doctor blunders everything and is saved by other characters is
rather surprising. Are we going back to a more fallible Doctor like
Davison?

There are other great scenes from this story. The cliffhanger intro to
the story with the woman coming to life in her coffin and strangling her
mourning son is shocking and sends this story off running at high speed.
There is also a nice scene with Rose when she first steps from the TARDIS
and makes her first step into the past mirroring the first step on the
moon. She also gets a great scene later on when she talks with the maid in
the cellar about boys and dating, and showcasing the differences in values
between the time periods.

Overall, another winner for the series. Although this and The End of the World have both outdone what Rose had started, things are looking good for the
series. If they can keep up this quality, this series could last almost as
long as the old series! 9/10

NEXT WEEK:

Another alien invasion, but this time on a grander scale! An alien
spacecraft smashes through Big Ben and crash lands in the Thames.
Soldiers are running frantically everywhere! I wonder if UNIT will make an
appearance here? I doubt it, but here's hoping. It's also going to be the
series' first two-part story. If they maintain the quality of the last
three, it should be a winner as well!

Well, I never thought I'd see the day. An episode of Doctor Who
gets higher audience figures on the BBC than the future King's wedding (on
the same day). How things have changed. I doubt that last time Prince
Charles got married, back in 1981, more viewers tuned in to watch Warriors' Gate (or whatever was on that week) than to
see the happy couple being joined (I certainly have better memories of
Princess Diana's dress than that lion thing). What a brilliant result
(that said, the British Royal Family are currently enduring something of a
"Season 24" - pratfalling and tacky celebrity guests included).

Well, in some ways that's a review enough for me. I must admit that
I've now become addicted to the ratings game, since we've been doing so
well. All that "forget how many people watched it, was it an intelligent
piece of science fiction drama?" stuff I used to spout was merely
self-deception to make up for our bad results. Still, I guess I'd better
keep up the pretence.

So, was this story any good? As a straightforward third episode in an
ongoing Saturday night TV series, it was pretty terrific. After hitting
viewers with alien invasions one week, blue people and exploding planets
the next, the series has now completely changed the atmosphere with a
heady mix of horror and sumptuous period design - it makes you think:
there really has been nothing on TV, ever, like Doctor Who.

I was a bit scared that Mark Gatiss might screw things up though.
He's always been good at creating strong atmospheres and doling out
self-knowing, ironic humour. However, he has had more trouble sticking
these bits of brilliance together into coherent stories (unsurprising,
given his main credit as a writer on League of Gentlemen - a series that
is effectively a macabre sketch show).

Indeed, there are clear problems with this tale. For one, the Doctor
is completely useless in this story - he does nothing but bring about the
deaths of two people and fill the world with zombies - Charles Dickens
eventually has to save the day. I think it's a bit early for the Ninth
Doctor to "do a Davison" and start screwing things up to show that he's
not perfect, though. He hasn't been fully established as our hero yet.

Also, the plot explanations that are offered after the seance scene are
pretty rushed. Any casual viewer who put the kettle on or quickly went to
the toilet during the two or three breathless sentences in which the
Doctor explains about "rifts", "aliens", and the osmotic effect of a gas
leak will have been left rather confused (in fact I've seen it twice, and
I'm still not quite sure why Dickens's plan is supposed to have worked.
Maybe my physics isn't good enough).

Another problem is that Gatiss clearly can't do "emotional" in the way
that Russell T. Davies can. The little, touching asides in The End of the World brought a lump to my throat.
But all the stuff between Rose and the servant girl, the Doctor and
Dickens and Rose and the Doctor (who seem to be getting a little too close
for my liking) made me want to throttle someone ("I'm so glad I met you
Rose." Yeugh).

But, qualms aside, this production had so much humour (the scene with
the Doctor telling Dickens he's "a fan" is a classic), the acting is so
great (especially Simon Callow's), the designs are so dark and gorgeous,
and the zombies so much scary fun, that none of the above really matters
that much. This really is everything we could have hoped for. And while
we Big Finish fans may be rather used to stories just like this (Phantasmagoria, Winter for the
Adept, The Chimes of Midnight) we must remember
how fresh this must all seem to casual viewers. No wonder Doctor
Who beat the Prince.

Furthermore, the episode next week looks absolutely amazing (forget
Daleks trundling past Big Ben's clocktower. Let's blow the thing up). I
also have to say that Davies is doing a great job in getting me excited
about the hinted at, long-running plotlines ahead (in the way that only
Desperate Housewives, and the Storm Warning - Neverland series of audios has managed before).
I'm already biting my nails, desperate to find out what this "time war"
is? And what it has got to do with the Doctor's homeworld. And what the
"big, bad wolf" is. I can't wait.

If anything is a testament to the characters and ongoing tone of the
programme that Russell T. Davies has created, it's The Unquiet
Dead. If you remove the Doctor and Rose from the equation, The
Unquiet Dead is a slight, predictable story that's damaged by a
sanitised production. But the presence of these two elevates this to a
likeable and occasionally beautiful tale, albeit one that suffers from its
truncated length and could have been much better.

There are two overwhelmingly negative elements to this story, one of
which I'll discuss later on. But first, for the production.

If there's one thing that puzzled me in the run-up to this story, it
was the sheer slavering joy that was going to be a story set in the
Victorian era. The reason given for something approaching fetishism is
that Doctor Who always recreates this era well. Well... yeah, but
most of that knowledge is almost thirty years old. Since Horror of Fang Rock, Doctor Who has returned to
Victorian climes twice; Mark of the Rani, which was
lumbered with unremitting cliches and truly appalling accents, and Ghost Light, which wasn't the Victorian era as such -
rather, it was set in a creepy madhouse, and was about the
Victorian era. Imagine a story populated by characters like Mrs Grose?
Sheesh.

This makes The Mark of the Rani look like gritty
realism - well, at least it had a bit of dirt in it. Equating this to a
representation of Victorian times is rather like saying a round of golf is
the same as a three-day cross-country hike. Everything's been prettified,
tidied up. Just look at the first shot when Rose steps out onto the
oh-so-virginal snow - that street is beautiful. It shouldn't be. The
people on those streets would be thin, malnourished shivering waifs, not
rosy-cheeked types wrapped up snug and warm. Where are the street-urchins,
thieving to stop themselves starving to death? Where's the horseshit?
Where's the rubbish, the grime, and the slopped out content of chamber
pots? Well?

If there's one thing that infuriates me, it's sanitising the truth,
making things pretty for prettiness' sake. It's like a mild version of The Happiness Patrol, except everything's painted
"moonlight" instead of pink. It's so unreal, so uninvolving - I want to
see a story set in a real place, with nastiness and darkness.

And if all that isn't bad enough, it's happened to the characters as
well. I suspect that Gatiss' script was a lot darker than what originally
made it to screen. Look at the character of Sneed. He's called a dirty old
man, and Rose notes that he works Gwyneth to death. He's been - it's
implied - killing people to keep his secret quiet, and is so tight that
he's trying to get an exorcism on the cheap. There's also a subtle
implication that he's getting, shall we say, something more than cleaning
from Gwyneth. This guy should be nasty, disgusting, a spittle-soaked miser
that reeks of dust. Instead, what do we get? A bald bloke with comedy
sideburns and a crap Welsh accent. And that's just not good enough, not by
any stretch of the imagination. I might mention that also running on BBC
at the moment is the drama Fingersmith, and while that's a silly bit of
hokum with the seemingly obligatory scenes where two girls lez it up with
each other, comparing the look of that story to this one is a frightening
experience. The Unquiet Dead may feature Charles Dickens, but it
seems like Euros Lyn (who did sterling work on The
End of the World) hasn't read a Dickens story in his life. Hasn't even
seen a TV adaptation of one.

As for Dickens himself, he suffers from the ho-ho-ho tone of the whole
thing quite badly. Simon Callow's comments on the scripts suggest that
initially, Dickens' porrtayal had far more teeth - an alcoholic shadow of
his former self, bored, run out of ideas, and waiting to die. Not a
million miles, it could be said, from Martin Bannister in Deadline. But it's just not pushed enough. Callow (a
simply wonderful actor) does his best to give this character a dark side
(the drunken acting after the seance), but Dickens looks and sounds like a
stereotyped Victorian and he's far too healthy. When Dickens declares "I
saw nothing but an illusion," there were so many ways that line could have
been meaningful. It could have sounded tired, or beaten, or desperate. But
it sounds like... nothing. It sounds like Dickens is being stupid. It's
not giving us anything to hang on to. So you're left wondering why Dickens
was included at all, why it couldn't have been anybody else. We
don't learn anything about him, or get any new insights into who he was.
I'm not a fan of Doctor Who dabbling with real characters for the
sake of it - yeah, Richard the Lionheart in The
Crusades is lovely, but George Stephenson in The Mark
of the Rani is crap and gratuitous. Sadly, so is Dickens in this, even
if he does get some good lines.

But...

But this is entertaining, in spite of all that. The script gets a
little long-winded in places, as in that "air-cooling device" joke, but
it's generally sharp and funny. The Doctor's "happy medium" joke is
hilarious, and the interplay between him and Rose is a treat ("go out
there dressed like that and you'll start a riot, Barbarella"!) The script
makes a lot of jokes at Cardiff's expense - and quite right too, I say.
The set-pieces are wonderfully put together, and while it's a little
overlong, the final scene is lovely. The pre-title sequence is a ripping
opening - how could any channel-hopper flick past that and not
watch the rest of the story? The notion of these creatures being made of
gas and hiding in the walls is both frightening and wonderful, and the
story expertly builds up suspense around the time rift. More stuff on the
war, too; the Gelth's mention of it appears to push the Doctor into
action, quite possibly through guilt, and the Doctor's statement that
"Time is in flux, your cosy little world could be rewritten like that"
would appear to suggest that Gallifrey has been unmade, in line with the
EDA's again.

Both leads are on top of their game here, not least Eccleston who's so
at home in the role that it's tragic to think we won't get more of him
(but brilliant that we got any of him at all). His sheer joy at the first
sight of the Gelth is wonderful. And something I'm starting to notice
about that grin of his - he almost always grins at other people, and
hardly ever when he's on his own. The relationship between him and Rose is
becoming increasingly affectionate, not least when he turns to her and
says "I'm so glad I met you," or at the start where Rose says these
journeys are "better with two." Positively flirty; fanboys will be hiding
behind the sofa. And yet, such is the distant and different nature of this
Doctor, it seems pleasingly implausible. C'mon, what are you really
thinking?

The plot, though, is slight. They're aliens! They're made of gas!
That's it! Or that's almost it. There's a final jolt at the end, which is
difficult to discuss without a spoiler (although it's bloody predictable
anyway), but here goes.

Anyone who likes flicking around newsgroups will probably be aware of
Lawrence Miles' furious review of this story. It must be said that he's
got a point. Given the political climate in Britain right now, the ending
- Lawrence Miles thinks - is just indefensibly thoughtless.

And yet... well, when I read this I thought he was right, and I was
concerned that I just couldn't make myself get as worked up as him. My own
reaction to the ending was how disappointingly obvious and routine it was.
There were so many better ways to do this. Imagine, for example, if Sneed
had suddenly got frightened about the sheer number of evil spirits being
let into his world, attacked them, and turned them hostile (in a way,
given that a stranger is allowing a bunch of bodysnatching spirits into
his house, it's surprising that a man like Sneed doesn't do this).
It's not that this would be politically more acceptable; it's that it
would be a better, more affecting, more emotionally-charged finale.

And this, I reckon, is why I can't make myself believe that kids will
be running into the loving arms of the BNP after watching The Unquiet
Dead. At the end of the day, it's a story, innit? That's not me trying
to be facetious; yes, television affects how we think, and yes, a series
in this tone wouldn't be the programme that remains my moral touchstone.
But this is a single instance, and not one we haven't seen those before.
Look at The Claws of Axos, where nice homeless aliens
come and ask if they can stay for a while, offering (essentially) to work
for us in return, but it's all lies and they're nasty creatures which have
come to devour and destroy everything. Doctor Who is, ultimately, a
fantasy show, and while the morality is important in the context of the
programme, it's got to be very overt to spread beyond it. The average
person won't make the leap from Gelth to immigrants. It's just not obvious
enough.

But as I said, the politically more tolerable message would be the more
dramatically satisfying one, and that's the nub of the matter. Doctor
Who's finely-judged morality is what makes the programme
interesting. The Doctor doesn't blow things up, and that's not
because he's spreading a pacifist message, it's because it's boring.
Doctor Who's morality is what stops the programme being boring,
what makes the solutions and the monsters diverting. Doctor Who's
morality is why it's entertaining, fundamentally.

And that's the point; the ending is disappointing and unimaginative.
And kids are smart. Something we forget. Kids will know that this element
wasn't a good element, wasn't something to learn from. And what makes
The Unquiet Dead a good story is that the really wonderful scenes
in it, the ones that kids would take with them, are kicking in the
opposite direction.

That Rose - Gwyneth scene, for example. After a rather forced scene
where they talk about boys, Rose tries to impose her own values on Gwyneth
("Maybe being wild's not such a bad thing"); but it's turned on its head.
Gwyneth's description of our universe depicts it as a horrible place, a
sex-driven world enslaved to horrors, where people rush about like
termites. This isn't a question of us looking down at the past, but our
own society being questioned.

And then there's that scene - "It's a different morality, get used to
it or go home." The Doctor's reaction to Rose's perfectly-formed customs
is so contemptuous, so brusque, and rubbishes them in an instant. It's
deprived of punch, of course, by the ending, but the force of this
argument carries a damn sight more force.

And then, just afterwards, is a moment even better. "That's written
very clearly in your mind, miss, that you think I'm stupid," says Gwyneth
(who's beautifully played) to Rose. And it's said softly and humbly, but
what Rose is being confronted with is this; how dare you speak for me? How
dare you think you're better than me? How dare you assume that you're
smarter and more developed, and that I can't make my own decisions? Seeing
her (and by extension, our; because as a viewer, I was thinking about
Gwyneth in much the same way Rose was) worldview confronted and rejected
is great. And there's nothing more Who-ish than that.

The little things are so noticeable in this series, which is so utterly
unlike anything else on-screen right now. The zombie scenes may be
standard horror fare, but when the Doctor comes face to face with them,
what does he do? He talks to them. He tries to understand them. And he
finds out what they're up to. That's so beautiful and so different; Buffy
would have just fly-kicked their heads off and made a joke about
moisturising.

And that's the sort of thing that's making this series work. Even a
routine tale like this, one with so many things wrong. It's still holding
my attention. It's still my must-see show.

This is the least satisfying story of the season so far (although it's
probably more re-watchable than Rose), but that
doesn't mean it's not good stuff. Because it's more overtly "classic
Doctor Who", it does seem much more cut-down than The End of the World. And the pacing is out at times
- some scenes go on too long, particularly when you consider how little
room the rest of the story has to breathe (and how opaque some of the
time-rift stuff is, particularly since most of this story's viewers won't
remember Image of the Fendahl). And yes, I think the
ending is disappointing and has an unpleasant subtext. But the story's
smart, it's got good set-pieces, and is has some beautiful moments. Oh,
and it's really quite scary in spots.

Ah, people are complaining to the BBC about Doctor Who again. If
nothing else, isn't that reassuring?

Another fine episode and from a production point of view one of the
most atmospheric pieces of television ever filmed. The gorgeous location
work, chilling and subtle effects and beautiful lighting combine to make
this is an absolute treasure on the eyes.

Any doubts that others writers than RTD could pull of his unique style
of Doctor Who are quashed with this glorious historical episode.
You have everything that the first two episodes had, the fantastic
production, the witty lines, the mentions of the "War", the engaging
narrative but this episode has the bonus of being the closest to what we
fans recognise as Doctor Who. Rose clearly
borrowed wholesale from Spearhead from Space and
various other Doctor Who stories and was truly Doctor Who
but its modern day setting gave it a new edge. The Unquiet Dead has
to compete with gems such as Talons of Weng-Chiang
and Curse of Fenric as Doctor Who has always
had a great track record when popping back to the past, historical
re-enactments being the BBC's greatest triumph in my eyes. To Mark Gatiss'
credit he has delivered a smashing story, expertly squeezed into
fourty-five minutes without squandering his location or period or any
depth a historical can offer. This is everything Mark of
the Rani should have been and half the length at that.

It is shocking just how out of place Christopher Eccleston's Doctor is
in the Victorian era considering how perfect his previous selves have
fitted it. It is another layer to this intriguing new Doctor that marks
him out as something very different to what we are used to. My friend Matt
is having troubles with his accent, this very northern-sounding Doctor
proving a bit too normal to be totally believable but I am finding his
portrayal more and more interesting every week. Gone is the grinning loon
from Rose as Eccleston grows into the role and
discovers what the show is capable of and he is replaced by a far more
balanced character, one who is capable of growing very angry suddenly
(these sudden bursts are shocking and accentuate the fact that this is an
alien we are dealing with), who can turn on the charm ("You're brilliant,
you are!"), make quick decisions (as he does here with the future of the
Gelth) and remain very humane ("I'm so glad I met you"). He dashes about
Victorian Cardiff (the location itself involved in a number of brilliantly
time jokes at its expense), every inch the hero right up to the touching
climax.

I hope Rob Shearman was not too pissed off at Gatiss stealing wholesale
his idea of the "little person" saving the world from Chimes of Midnight? It is so important that the new
series is concentrating on characterisation over special effects. Oh you
can have as much spectacle as you want and you can fill the screen with as
many pretty pictures as you want but if there is no story to follow or
characters to care about you will lose your audience as soon as the eye
candy wears off (and trust me that high can lose its novelty very
quickly... ever seen The Phantom Menace?). Wisely, Gatiss populates his
episode sparsely and takes each of them on a journey, which climaxes in
very different ways (murder, suicide and life affirming glee!) but which
satisfies in each case.

Whilst Dickens is clearly the centrepiece for the episode I found
Gwyneth even more interesting because it was somebody I knew nothing
about. Cute references aside, we all know Dickens story (and his
stories...) so it is easy to predict just where his character is going (as
touching as that was) but Gwyneth surprised me a lot. In one superb scene
she looks into Rose's mind and has a frightening look at the future and
the tone of the scene shifts several times. First, it's hilarious girl
chat that highlights the difference in culture between the two women which
is then deepened when Gwyneth spots the cars and planes and noise of the
future and then it gets REALLY scary as the Doctor reveals her part to
play in this crisis. A great scene. Her relationship with Rose takes on
real depth when it becomes clear that she is vital to the climax and
Rose's firm admonishment to the Doctor ("She's not going to fight your
battle!") shows you how close they have become in such a short time. It
was Rose's reaction to her death that affected me the most, as she starts
to learn the responsibility of time travel and the fact that you cannot
save everybody.

If Rose's relationship with her spotlights Gwyneth it is the Doctor's
slack-jawed reaction to Dickens that reminds you meeting this man is an
EVENT. And what a disappointment he is. At first. Simon Callow plays up
his scepticism to such an extent he would make Dana Scully proud and yet
retains the dignity and good humour of the character. You really want to
shake the man and tell him this is really happening and to pull himself
together! But his vital role in the climax redeems him totally and his
final line and little swagger just make the episode. The Doctor's invasion
of Dickens' life is given real weight and Rose is afforded a look at just
how their adventures can change peoples lives for the good (Dickens) and
the bad (Gwyneth). What I loved about Callow's performance was the humour
he injected into it, his immediate turn around in opinion about the
Doctor's character when he starts raving about his books is hilarious and
his drunken speech summing up the truth about the Gelth similarly
chucklesome. And his line when he is surrounded by zombies at the climax
must rank as one of the best lines in the series yet. Having such a big
name gives the episode real weight but it is the performance that counts
and Callow does a predictably wonderful job.

It's Christmas! The TARDIS landing at Christmas! Dontcha just love it
when Rose steps in the snow as if to confirm all this magic is real. The
Beeb have pulled of a real Victorian Christmas with fantastic detail and I
was clapping so loud when I first saw the TARDIS land I woke the dog up!
There is something wonderfully atmospheric about a ghost story at
Christmas it is real shame it couldn't have been shown then (maybe they'll
repeat the episode over the festive season... I'd watch it!) and my advice
is to tape it and watch it again with all the lights off when it's dark.
Brrr... it takes a whole new level of creepiness...

Was it too scary? I doubt it, kids are used to so much nastiness on
telly these days but this mix of spookiness and the fantastical might
catch those of the more faint hearted. The pre-credits sequence was
excellent for grabbing the attention and preparing us for the episode
ahead but my personal favourite scare came at the end when the corpses
started springing up en masse... it was like something out of Shaun of the
Dead except it looked really stylish! The theme of the dead rising is
always a winner and I am more interested in hearing what the adults
thought because I fairly certain the idea of corpse possession would
affect them more.

This was an excellent spooky fantasy, which probably would just be
pipped by The End of the World if it wasn't for
that gorgeous production which pushes it into a league of its own.

And with the scratchy sound of a box being ticked off on a checklist
comes Mark Gatiss' contribution to the new series; a bit of faintly
pastichey ghoulish Victoriana. Who'da thunk it.

Enjoyable episode, this, though given that new Who has thus far
been characterised by its sheer enjoyability, that's not really saying
much that's specific to the episode.

Actually, I've found it quite difficult thus far to come up with
anything to actually say about this new series other than that it's bloody
brilliant. There haven't even been any reviews I seriously disagree with
enough to prompt a response, since what negative criticism there is in the
online fan hangouts has been so trivial and smallminded as to be simply
not worth the bother. Why bother writing a long-winded defence of the use
of Britney Spears' Toxic in one of the episodes when you can just tut and
think 'Oh get a life, you sad fart'. And that's genuinely the level of
criticism fandom has sunk to with this series, just a bunch of tedious
asinine nitpicks each based on a central complaint that the show is daring
to act like it's not 1975 anymore; the situation is such that I can even
name the one fan reviewer who's made proper, intelligent complaints about
the current series. That's you, Jonathan Hili.

'Sides from that... well, there's been some commentary from Lawrence
Miles of course, but to my mind he's less a 'fan reviewer' than some form
of capricious prose demigod. It amazes me, though, that those pesky
'general audiences', who used to be the ones who didn't get the show, now
seem to appreciate far better than the fans just how good it is. I mean,
my dad, for God's sake, who's never liked Doctor Who or
watched a whole 'classic series' story right through, now thinks it's
brilliant. The Guardian Guide, the most snide and hateful weekend
supplement in the free world, referred to The Unquiet Dead as the
best thing that's been on televison for ages - and believe me, from that
petulant publication praise like this is something akin to a biblical
miracle.

Luckily, though, there's something I can latch onto there. Unquiet
Dead's not really that good, not looked at in the context of
the episodes around it. Actually, it's not even as good as Doctor
Who's last televised venture into Victorian times, and in production
terms that was only three serials back ... yeah, 'enjoyable' almost goes
without saying, but it's still probably the weakest of what we've seen so
far (that's as of episode 7, context-seekers!) Still, Mark Gatiss can rest
easy beneath his Jon Perwee duvet cover; I'm sure there'll be a majority
swathe of fandom who, come the end of the season, will be holding it up as
the second best episode, you know, after the one with the Dalek in. Those
'1975' people I mentioned.

The thing I first noted about the story on my initial viewing was that
it showed up the limitations of the self-contained 45-minute story a lot
more than had been the case with The End of the
World. What would once, in - yes, I'm going to say it - the
Hinchcliffe years have been an atmospheric first episode building
suspensefully up to the horrifying moment when a corpse sits up in its
coffin is here reduced to a slick pre-titles sequence that's too stylised
to be genuinely scary. And then when the Doctor and Rose arrive in
Victorian Cardiff, no sooner do they walk down the street than they're up
to their necks in a flock of squealing ghouls with Charles Dickens hanging
on to their coat tails. This in actuality is the sort of ludicrous
coincidence Doctor Who always relied on - think the Doctor and
Leela just happening to get embroiled in that scuffle with the Black
Scorpion gang, which led them straight to the police station, which got
them involved with Professor Litefoot, who just happened to own Magnus
Greel's time machine without knowing what it was ... that's all pretty
unlikely, but because it happens over the course of several scenes and
episodes, we don't really notice it. Whereas here the compressed running
time makes the huge unlikelihood of the Doctor and Rose fortunately being
on hand stick out like a sore thumb.

The seance scene, too, seems like the sort of thing that would have
benefitted from more of build up, and which - you can't help thinking -
would have consumed almost a whole episode of a 'classic' Who
serial. The fast pacing, which had seemed appropriate the previous episode
in the year Five billion, felt a good deal less believable in a tale set
in the nineteenth century. I guess it's because the narrative forms of
that time were so long-winded, and it's customary, when recreating this
period in drama, to recreate the manner in which stories were told back
then, for verisimilitude.

I was left wondering if Mark Gatiss' original script was a good deal
longer and darker than this one. What there is of it here tends to make
you suspect that that's the case. Indeed, as Mike Morris already pointed out - and to be honest you could just add a 'ditto'
from me to most of this fella's remarks on the current series -, some of
what is there in the script as it stands feels like it's been either
sugar-coated or just plain smothered by the production; Sneed, for
example, seems to be written in the manner of a Dickens character - and
from my admittedly limited no-further-than-A-level (oh, and a piece by
George Orwell) experience of Dickens, that would typically mean a
character whose physical attributes and personality traits fortuitously
correspond with the sound of his name, like Scrooge or Gradgrind. 'Sneed'
sounds like and rearranges 'needs' and implies, to my mind, a pinched,
scrawny mean little man. Instead he's grossly miscast as some loveable
sideburned old tub of butterscotch. And Charles Dickens looks like the Ghost Light episode 3 rosy-hued Josiah Samuel Smith when
the script suggests he should look like the dusty spluttery episode 1
version. The Victorian streets sparkle like the set of some cheap
Christmas Carol telemovie. And in my least favourite pretzel-like twisting
of a scripted line, Rose's 'You dirty old man' comes across to the
audience not as the presumably intended 'ugh, that lecherous old bugger',
but instead as 'awww, isn't she feisty?' The chocolate-box production is
nowhere near as evocative or threatening as that of the obvious comparison
serial, Talons of blahdyblah - given that the most
noticeable difference between old Who and new is the quality of the
production values, it's interesting to note that in one sense they're
actually poorer than they were thirty years ago. I rather dismissively
said in my review of The End of the World that
it's 'fashionable' to diss CGI, but come to think of it I can understand
the objection in some ways; Mike Morris - a man who incidentally I
wouldn't accuse of saying anything just because it's 'fashionable'! - once
remarked to me in a discussion of the Star Wars prequels that CGI looks
simply too real, too crisp and perfect and in-focus. I think I can
see his point; it appears to me - as an utterly untechnically-minded
observer, mind you - that because computer effects are still so
platonically perfect in appearance, the rest of the production has to be
scrubbed up and glossified just to fit in with them, rather than vice
versa.

But as I say, we just wouldn't have this TV series at all without them.
Got to take the rough with the smooth. Or rather, take the smooth when
you'd secretly prefer the rough.

I'm also wondering, though, if the Beeb isn't presenting a deliberately
British Tourist Boardy view of the UK for international markets. Thinking
back to the use of the London Eye in Rose, for
example. And Charles Dickens seems a very obvious, establishment choice of
'guest star'.

Anyway, as I say the production has been covered already, so I don't
need to go over it too much. However, it's interesting to note further to
Mike Morris' discussion (Jesus, I'm really piggybacking
here!) that the episode did in any case, sparkle or not, snag a few
complaints from fretful parents for being 'too scary'. So it could very
well be argued that without the lacquer of glossy production, the story
couldn't have been made for its 7pm timeslot at all.

To take the most pertinent example of neutralised scariness: whereas it
would have been really chilling for the story to simply show corpses
getting and wandering off of their own accord, the story as made takes
pains to first show them being infused with a big cloud glowing blue gas.
This not only provides an advance warning of what's going to happen, but
also suggests an explanation somewhere down the line. Which is fine by me,
because very young kids would be too scared by a stark, overtly
horror movie-ish approach.

Still, given that scripting and production seem to have gone very much
hand-in-hand in each of the RTD episodes so far, the clash evidenced in
this episode points to an interesting phenomenon. For a few years, there
were only ever two names that came up in discussions of the possibility of
a new Who TV series - one was a chap who contributed to a deeply
twisted cult comedy show and wrote the odd cranky letter about DW
to the Radio Times, the other a writer who's only DW qualification
seemed to be that he'd intercut shots of some bloke watching Pyramids of Mars into a scene of underage rimming. One
ultimately got the gig, the other didn't.

Well, The Unquiet Dead represents a little mediated snapshot,
glimpsed through an RTD-shaped window, of what a Gatiss-Who series
might have been like. Darker, probably post-watershed, not that original
but a bit more literately inclined (expecting people to get the 'ending of
Edwin Drood' joke is a bold gamble, and the script still has the Doctor
explain it just to be one the safe side) ... but 'safe', old-fashioned,
fanboyish, niche.

And a bit dodgy. You know, that ending. I must say the reading Lawrence
Miles made did occur to me on my first viewing too, though I didn't
respond to it anything like as violently - I was more disappointed that
after a promising start ('That's right, it's a different morality. Get
used to it or piss off!' - I paraphrase, but not much), the plotting had
simply taken a turn toward the dull and hackneyed. Still, when you look at
the scripts Russell T Davies has been giving us - and when you stop bloody
focusing on pseudo-farting and stuff -, you see a very savvy writer who's
very aware of the world this new series is being broadcast to. Mike (ahem)
someone-or-other made that point about 'allegory' as regards Aliens of London/World War Three, pointing out that
he wasn't necessarily that keen on it as a storytelling form, because it's
didactic and smartarsed. But he made this point - 'what this story does is
tap into contemporary events and fears, and use them to infuse the story
with precedence and direction' - that could really apply to all of the
episodes RTD has given us up to and including The Long Game anyway.
He's not writing 'allegory', but the texture of his work is - well, I
can't think of a more suitable phrase than the one I just used - savvy.
Social-political commentary isn't something his scripts are 'doing', not
an end result they're aiming for - rather it's an innate condition of the
position they're coming from. I don't think Gatiss has that sensibility;
one gets the impression from his work in general that his primary
reference points are other fictions rather than the world at large. And
though the ideological misstep he makes here with the end 'twist' is more
careless than heinous - there's no particular reason to extrapolate a
single instance into a broad 'moral of the story', and there's a more
overt, almost cloyingly so, 'Have an open mind' moral here anyway -, I've
certainly been left convinced that Gatiss-Who would have been too
old-fashioned, too parochial too involuted. Too much for fans, and old
boring ones at that.

Course, it seems the best non-RTD writers on the new series can do is a
kind of pared-down version of the schtick we fans have seen 'em do
already; just as Gatiss' inclination towards the seedy, dusty and sinister
has been polished up to fit more easily into the series Rusty is making,
so too was Robert Shearman stripped of much of his individuality and
scathing sense of humour for the Dalek episode, merely grafting bits of
the excellent Jubilee onto an action piece
(leaving me satisfied as a fan of the TV series, but disappointed as a fan
of the writer). Rusty's obviously tight control of the project may lead in
the long run to a JNT-style backlash from fandom - who, let's face it,
have an appetite for ungrateful backlash even at the best of times -, but
I think certainly for the moment the Reign of Rusty over contributing
writers is more a good thing than a bad one. There's a consistency between
something dodgy the Doctor did at the end of The End
of the World and something dodgy he does at the end of this story, and
because Rose saw how cold he could be back then, it's clear that she -
rightly- suspects he's not telling the whole truth about what happens
here. And earlier in the episode there's a surprisingly lengthy shared
scene between Rose and Gwyneth which seems designed to complement the one
between Rose and the plumber in the previous episode. Rusty's Who
is a series that could more accurately (though a good more horribly!) be
called The Doctor and Rose, so I think what's most important is that bits
like these fit in with their neighbouring episodes; Okay, the 'I'm so glad
I met you' bit is a good deal clumsier than the easy rapport we saw
developing in End of the World (and which has
worked wickedly well played off against Adam in The Long Game), but
it's not objectionable.

Indeed, I think the biggest objection I could make to The Unquiet
Dead is that it's a merely very good episode of a completely superb
series.

Having travelled forward in time for its second story, the new
adventures of Doctor Who head to the past for its third, in The
Unquiet Dead. My feelings about this episode are conflicted, in that
as a piece of television, evaluated without the expectations I have for
Doctor Who, it was excellent. However, as a longtime fan of
Doctor Who it is impossible for me to not be making inner comments,
criticisms and comparisons to the past.

In this episode we have the continued growth of a running theme where
the Ninth Doctor is just as often portrayed as a bloke with a time machine
and a lot of knowledge, as he is as a genuine hero and rescuer of those in
danger. In this story the Doctor's knowledge of the true nature of the
supernatural is put on display, but he's completely mistaken about this
particular manifestation, imperils everyone's lives and then has to be
saved by someone else. It isn't that this sort of thing has never
happened before, but in the past, with longer stories, this could be
worked into a story and still have the Doctor redeem himself later. In
these 45-minute stories there's no time for any such thing.

On the bright side, however, an interesting story with a suitably
dramatic (though unoriginal) twist, with a wonderful guest performance as
a famous author near the end of his life. He probably comes out looking
the best in the story and is one of the bright spots in it. We also have
a suitably humorous parting, one of those incredulous "But where are you
going? That's just a big blue box!" situations that can be so amusing.

One other point of contention in this story is that it seems to confirm
that a rising body count is here to stay in Doctor Who. Sure,
people have died before, and the Doctor has also failed to save people in
need, but none of these stories have truly had happy outcomes . It almost
feels a bit like Lawrence Miles taking the Eighth Doctor to task in Interference, like someone in charge is trying to make a
point, or somehow demystify the Doctor. Sorry, I rather liked him
mystified, myself.

This review has been more negative than the story really warrants in a
thorough overview, however; nothing spectacular, but it was good TV
and everyone had at least some good moments. A bit disappointing is
all: 7/10.

This Saturday night saw the first Australian transmission of The
Unquiet Dead by Mark Gatiss (best known as a comic actor in such shows
as The League of Gentlemen). This was the first time since the show
returned that it felt like we were actually watching Doctor Who.

The story is set in Cardiff during Christmas 1869. Dickens is on a tour
and is caught up in an adventure with the Doctor and the uncomfortably
dressed Billie Piper. Bodies have been coming to life at a local
undertaker's house. Furthermore the maid is psychic having grown up around
a rift that exists in the mortuary. Beings from elsewhere known as the
Gelf are searching for a way into Earth. They are composed of gas and
travel about in the pipes of the house. They can exist in the gas-filled
bodies of the dead for sometime.

To cut a short story even shorter, The Doctor encourages the maid to
act as a bridge for the alien beings - who turn out to be evil. They are
promptly wiped in a gas explosion set off by the animated corpse of the
maid. During the course of the adventure the almost unbelievably sceptical
Dickens rediscovers an enthusiasm for life and his writing - although the
Doctor informs Rose that he dies the next year.

Well there are certain elements that we have seen before in science
fiction. The Star Trek story, Time's Arrow, featured a burnt out, bitter
Samuel Clements (aka Mark Twain) who gets to visit the Enterprise during
the course of that time travelling adventure and is lifted from his
despair over the human condition and the fate of mankind. In a similar
way, Charles Dickens is redeemed by his experiences. Being a Victorian
gentleman at the nadir of his career it is believable that he might fear
that he knew everything. What I don't find convincing is the way in which
such an intelligent man cannot accept the evidence of his own eyes (i.e.
the apparition in the theatre and the initial animation of two corpses at
the undertaker's house). This seems to be a pattern in the new series
that precious time is spent having the central characters sufficiently
convinced that something extraordinary is going on. Billie Piper's Rose
exemplified this in the pilot episode Rose - although
in her case it is just a fraction more believable.

Eccleston continues to stamp his mark on the character. His interaction
with Dickens in the coach was quite humorous and one could be sure we were
actually listening to the words of Mark Gatiss and not his nibs. Simon
Callow gave a very fine performance as Dickens but didn't really appear
old enough to be the burnt out Dickens - still he gave a very good
interpretation of a weary hack. From the rest of the supporting cast, Eve
Myles gave a lovely performance as Gwyneth the Maid. Her scene with Rose
where she looks into her mind (such as it is) is a very convincing moment.
Meanwhile, Billie Piper is an embarrassment and inadvertently gave the
best performance of an animated corpse of the lot.

While the direction and incidental music are once again of a very high
standard, there are some indications of interference with the script in
order to inject elements of the larger "game plan". The reference to the
fact that time is in flux and that history could be rewritten in an
instant during the climax of the story seemed to be planted and therefore
artificial and out of place. So much for the web of time... perhaps
that went with the Time Lords? There seemed to be an inference that the
Gelth suffered some catastrophe in the Time War that destroyed the
Nestenes and Gallifrey. Still there is more than enough of Gatiss in
the story to make it the best written so far - he has an obvious love of
the show and it is more than just a notch in his belt to him. I think the
story was rather more than a little influenced by the classic The Talons of Weng-Chiang but it could only ever have
been a third of the worth of that story given its brevity.

The three shows I have seen so far seems to point to some central
problems with the new series. Why Cardiff? Well it is produced by BBC
Wales... I suppose it's cheaper. And it looks as though Wales is going to
be a consistent feature in the show. The fact that the crew have trouble
standing up when the TARDIS is in flight is going to get very boring very
fast. It's just immature slapstick. And once again the story seemed
rushed. When the 45 minute format was pioneered in Season 22, they were
all at least two part stories... I just can't understand the reasoning
behind wanting to feature nine different stories in a single season. My
suspicion is that the three two parters will seem much more rounded.

The third episode of the latest season of Doctor Who sees the
TARDIS landing in Cardiff 1869, right in the thick of a ghost-ridden
Christmas Carol (is there any other kind?). The result is the most
"traditional" 2005 Who so far, and also the best.

The stand-out scene of the entire story is certainly the first - a
sensational atmospheric set piece, in which an elderly lady rises from the
dead. It truly is an iconic moment, the sort of scene you can imagine
inflicted many a sleepless night on children everywhere. The unearthly
scream that echoes off into the title sequence is simply chilling, setting
the mood for the story perfectly.

Although The Unquiet Dead never quite regains the lofty heights
achieved in this teaser, it nonetheless remains a strong adventure, one
which revels in its pure Doctor Who-i-ness. It features some
lovely characters, creepy if somewhat unoriginal monsters, and a simple
but effective plot. Its forty-five minute format is well used, but it was
fast becoming clear by this point in the season that Doctor Who
really does work better on a bigger canvas, allowing for more in depth
stories.

For example, take the plot. It is basic (ghosts taking over the bodies
of the dead), yet it is ably covered, and has a spark of originality to it
in the use of gas in the storyline. However, it is the character
development and interaction that gets most of the attention. Much of the
narrative revolves around Charles Dickens' belief system, his attitude
towards the fantastic and the unexplained. Seeing the man change his
mindset over the course of the story is a joy to behold, the sort of
subtle character development that makes good television so wonderful to
watch.

In fact, The Unquiet Dead is in many ways one of the most
successful stories of the 2005 season when it comes to character
development and emotional exploration. Unlike later entries with their
rather heavy-handed, unsubtle approaches (I'll review those stories
soon...), The Unquiet Dead tackles its characters in a much more
believable and entertaining way. Gwyneth's relationship with Rose is
really quite lovely; seeing the bond form between the servant and the
modern day teenager acts as a clever way to showcase the differences
between the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries. We have some nice
ideas gently pushed in our direction in regards to modern notions of what
is prim and proper - see the conversation about Rose's "wild" nature.
But again, these themes and ideas are not rammed down our throats (I hate
being pandered to); rather, they are there to be taken on board if we wish
it.

Rose and the Doctor's dynamic is again addressed. The Doctor's take on
right and wrong is intriguing, particularly when contrasted to Rose's.
"What? Not proper? Not polite? It could save their lives!" is a really
biting line in a scene which shows Rose reacting with her heart and the
Doctor reacting from his need to help a race he believes to be in peril.
It is difficult to argue that either viewpoint is wrong as such, but it is
again another interesting argument (admittedly pertaining to a rather
fantastic situation), and gets us thinking that little bit more, thus
dragging us into the drama.

For all this lovely character work, though, it must be said that
Doctor Who is, for me, about the ambitious plots and ideas. The
ideas are in this one, certainly, but I like to see a bigger story being
told. This is not the fault of The Unquiet Dead itself or of
writer Mark Gatiss, rather is a problem with the forty-five minute
structure. As I have said in other reviews, I recognise that this
structure is important in making the series more accessible to Joe Public,
but I really do think that the show loses a little something as a result.

One other thing that rubs me the wrong way about the new series, and is
bubbling under the surface in The Unquiet Dead, is the romantic
angle. It is a very minor thing in this story, but I really don't see the
point of throwing in a romantic relationship just for the hell of it,
especially when it isn't what the show is about - it's about wonder and
excitement and adventure. However, there are times when there is a
deliberate attempt on the part of the programme makers to make us want the
Doctor and Rose to get together. I don't watch this show for romance.
It literally bores me. I'm happy to go watch Buffy for that sort of thing
- Joss Whedon made it clear that romance was a fixture of the Buffyverse
in the very first episode; meanwhile, Doctor Who was perfectly
successful for twenty something years without traveling down the romantic
path, aside from the Doc and Romana holding hands in City
of Death, and a brief peck on the cheek in Terminus. I am far more
interested in seeing exciting adventures in time and space.

I honestly don't see the point of cheesy dialogue like "I am sooo glad
I met you" or "better with two". As I said, it is a minor point here, but
it isn't so much in other stories. I know I sound like I'm moaning over
nothing... in this particular instance it is simply a case of my own
personal likes and dislikes coming into play, though I think it must be
said that later on this season there are genuine problems that arise from
this approach (again, more on that later...).

But this is a minor niggle in The Unquiet Dead. This is a damn
strong entry into the Who universe, an entertaining and spooky ride
in the nineteenth century. I haven't even mentioned that the cast are all
superb, Murray Gold's music is actually quite good (maybe Rose was just a blip?), and Euros Lyn again proves
himself as a good director (especially after Keith Boak's awful turn
earlier). This story doesn't really have a huge re-watch value for some
reason, but nonetheless I think that it is pretty hard to argue that this
is not a successful adventure.

The Unquiet Dead may have problems, but I'm fond of it. On
first broadcast I felt it was almost the best episode yet. Its story is
weightier than Rose and The End
of the World, which a critic could perhaps describe as characters in
search of a plot. The Unquiet Dead is also something that the
Eccleston series desperately needed as soon as possible... a scary
episode. Okay, it's hardly terrifying, but some killer zombies are just
what the Doctor ordered. It's hard to overestimate the importance of fear
in the British public's memories of Doctor Who.

In particular I like The Unquiet Dead for its characters.
Certain fans
have attacked the new series for being "character-based", as if the
classic series spent 26 years trying to be a Schwarzenegger movie. More
precisely what's new is the unprecedented emotional focus on the Doctor
and Rose, although I think it's also likely that those fans are confused
and that their real complaints concern plotting. Let's shatter one fan
myth right now... Russell T. Davies's new series stories are arguably
less character-based than those of the other writers. He gives strong
roles to the regulars, yes, but how many of his stories really do much
with a non-returning character?
If you discount returning characters [1], who can you even remember from a
Russell T. Davies episode? There's Cassandra from The End of the World, Simon Pegg's Editor and, um...
no, that's about it. Even then, the stories aren't about them.

[1] - although that's a horrible qualification.

On the other hand, the guest writers' stories were built around their
casts. Dalek is about its Dalek. Father's Day is about Rose's father. Steven
Moffat's two-parter is about Nancy and her brother. However The
Unquiet Dead gives us three important characters, even if a lacklustre
performance from Alan David sabotages one of them and effectively reduces
the count to two.

In a sense, it's not unfair to draw a distinction between one-off
characters and the regulars. There's more freedom with the former. The
TARDIS crew's story arc is planned out, probably to the end of the season
and beyond. On the other hand, one-off characters can get a complete,
satisfying story within a single episode. The Unquiet Dead is a
perfect example. Dickens and Gwyneth have emotional journeys, make
important decisions and save the day. One dies. The other is redeemed.
It's an actor's piece and those two actors step up to the plate and
deliver.

Incidentally, The Unquiet Dead is the only story with no
regulars but Eccleston and Piper. Half of the season starred Adam or
Captain Jack Harkness, then another half had Mickey and/or Jackie Tyler.
Even in The End of the World, Rose phones home. Eric Saward and JNT
discovered the hard way that there wasn't room for four regulars in the
TARDIS and I still think there's something in that... although if you
regard Dickens as a one-story companion, here it's arguably a TARDIS crew
of Eccleston, Piper and Callow.

One's attitude towards Dickens may be coloured by, well, one's attitude
towards Dickens! Personally I'm a Dickens fanboy, possibly because I
wasn't forced to read his books at school. That aside though, Simon
Callow gives a proper performance in a role with some meat for him to sink
his teeth into. As a footnote, let me observe that Callow delivers the
kind of verbose theatrical dialogue that's been tripping up Doctor
Who guest stars for decades, making it sound so natural for the
character that you hardly even notice it.

Then there's Gwyneth (Eve Myles), who gets one of my favourite lines of
the season... "You would say that miss, 'cos that's very clear inside
your head: that you think I'm stupid." Until then, we'd mentally written
off the character as a sweet but dumb maid (happy with her poor lot,
ill-educated, religious to the point where Rose thinks she's practically
deluded, etc.)... and then in one line Gatiss directly challenges what we
were all thinking. Compare the heroic sacrifices in End of the World and Unquiet Dead. The
former's was offscreen and almost throwaway, only gaining significance
through the Doctor's reaction afterwards, but the latter gave its actress
a strong scene to play.

I think Alan David fails as Gabriel Sneed the undertaker, though. You
could have so much fun with that part... Sneed does staggeringly dodgy
things and says things like "it's good for business". To all intents and
purposes the man's a murderer. Gwyneth asks if he "took care" of an
inconvenient customer, while later he locks Rose in to die at the hands of
walking corpses. A corpse breaking Sneed's neck should have been richly
deserved irony... but instead he's been played so blandly that you hardly
notice.

Hmmm. I seem to have started criticising. Time for the big ones.

Big Problem #1: whatever happened to Mark Gatiss? I'm no fan of his
novels, but he built his name on delicious black comedy with The League of
Gentlemen. Why did he play this so safe? The Unquiet Dead isn't
completely without jokes, but they're Dickens-fanboy puns or postmodern
comments from Rose. If you hadn't read Gatiss's BBC books, you'd never
guess that this was him. The rest of his TV work has such fun being
sadistic that in contrast this looks bland.

Ironically given Dickens's presence, this story isn't Dickensian. On
the contrary it's oddly straight-faced, never letting its hair down or
revelling in its characters' quirks. In fact of all the Doctor Who
TV stories set in Victorian England, this one:

In fairness The Unquiet Dead is portraying a drabber world. Talons of Weng-Chiang was a luscious grab-bag of
Victorian cliche. Ghost Light was a haunted house.
The Unquiet Dead is set in a Cardiff morgue. Nevertheless compare
these theatre scenes with their equivalents in Talons... the latter were vibrant, practically reeking
of greasepaint. In contrast The Unquiet Dead seems more interested
in showing how much they spent on hiring extras.

Becoming positive again, there are little things I like about The
Unquiet Dead. Is this the first gaseous life form we've seen in the
TV series? I liked that and on rewatching I even realised that despite
appearances everything makes perfect sense! The Gelth are gas creatures,
so they breathe and eat gas. They possess corpses because they need the
gases produced during decomposition, so flooding the atmosphere with gas
sucks them back out again. "They eat gas". That was all anyone had to
say. Personally I think the pseudo-science behind this story is pretty
nifty.

I liked the Dickens fanboy aspect, especially the Doctor's gushing in
the coach. These are genuinely literate jokes, stealing from the likes of
Oscar Wilde. I also liked the development of the Time War backstory,
which after only three stories had already provoked my imagination more
than a gazillion BBC Books on a similar subject. We also get the season's
spookiest Bad Wolf reference.

Incidentally the new series is doing something unknown since Hartnell's
era, except oddly in Season 22. Colin Baker met George Stephenson and
H.G. Wells, but unless you count the Rani's kidnappees in Time and the Rani then I don't think we've seen the
Doctor meet a real historical figure since The
Gunfighters. (The King's Demons comes close,
though.) What's more I hear that the 10th Doctor is set to meet another
historical personage, so this clearly isn't just a flash in the pan.

Overall I really like this story. It's disappointing in some major
ways, but I appreciate Gwyneth and Charles Dickens. It surprised me when
other fans didn't like it as much as I did on first viewing and a rewatch
didn't substantially change my opinion. For his next script I'd like to
see Mark Gatiss unfurl his wings a bit, though.

The Unquiet Dead gets my vote as the most enjoyable romp of the
2005 series. It's a thoroughly entertaining and undemanding ride. Not only
is it written in the spirit of the classic series, but thanks to Mark
Gatiss, with novels and audio credits to his name, there are strong echoes
of Doctor Who's progression during the non-TV interim. It's easy to
imagine this starting off as a Big Finish, along the lines of his
excellent Phantasmagoria. But then it would have been
twice as long, and I can't really imagine it sustaining such a duration.
As it is, the episode is a good example of 45 minutes as a standard
running time (which The End of the World was
not). The story is a lovely little pseudo-historical that maintains a
well-realised atmosphere, the right amount of suspense and some genuinely
creepy moments. While it has its high-budget-effects-oriented action
scenes, there's also a strong character focus. For instance, Gwyneth
talking about her visions of the twentieth century is far more frightening
than the zombie rampage at the climax. Indeed, the scene when everyone is
seated round having tea is quite remarkable for the new series; it's one
of the longest talking sequences I can recall from recent years, and is
all the better for it.

Christopher Eccleston is just fantastic, going from strength to
strength. His ninth Doctor is a veritable dynamo; reacting to a scream
with "That's more like it!" sums him up to a tee. Billie Piper continues
her strong run as Rose, dispelling once and for all any initial worries of
celebrity stunt-casting, and Eve Myles gives a very sympathetic
performance as Gwyneth, emphasising the young girl's tragic circumstances.
But Simon Callow is the star of The Unquiet Dead. If scene-stealing
were a crime, he'd be guilty of grand larceny! He pilfers every second of
screen time he occupies, never once resorting to overacting or scenery
chewing. He's a delight to watch. Every scene between Callow and Eccleston
is a joy, as their interplay is electrifying. The Doctor telling the
author he's his biggest fan is hilarious; the Time Lord becomes pedantic
fanboy (Martin Chuzzlewit being padded) in a sly, unsubtle nod to the fan
critic, i.e. us. But it's very funny and not at all unfounded. Such
postmodern winks became tiresome very quickly during 1990s fiction, but
that's not the case here. Perhaps the excitement and freshness of new,
on-screen Who validates it this time around? I'm not exactly sure.
Or perhaps it's just genuinely funny?

There's lots of smashing dialogue. Fans either love or hate "What the
Shakespeare is going on?" For the record, I adore it! Gatiss's nod to his
aforementioned Phantasmagoria passes my fanwank test:
those in the know will understand the reference; the rest aren't any worse
off and would simply appreciate a good line. I can also empathise with the
Doctor's despair at the thought of dying in Cardiff. Don't get me wrong,
I've been there myself and it's a lovely city, but not epitaph inspiring!
I also like the continued emphasis on the Doctor as an alien, especially
the examination of his "different morality". For example, how he condones
the recycling of corpses for the Gelth. For when you look at it, it's a
very logical, environmentally conscious thing to do!

Overall this is an enjoyable story. There's very little to complain
about; I felt that Dickens's final word on Christmas is rather twee, but
that's about it. The closing scenes are nicely done; the knowledge the
writer will die the following year is very sad, even when you reality
check yourself and remember that of course the real Charles Dickens died
over a century ago. But yes, Callow is that good; so too Eccleston and
Piper in their reactions. Doctor Who's revival is coming along very
nicely, thank you very much. 8.5/10

The Unquiet Dead is not an easy story to review. That's not to
say it's not an easy story to watch - it actually goes down really
smoothly. The setting is immersive, the performances are pretty good
overall, the villains are at least intriguing... so why is this such a
difficult story to talk about?

Well, I don't really like it that much. And I'm not sure why.

I mentioned the setting. If you thought The End of
the World was convincing, wait until you get a piece of 1869 Cardiff.
I understand that it's a way easier environment to convey than its
predecessor and the BBC has a particularly deep closet for period pieces,
but its absolutely terrific nonetheless. The undertaker's house is
appropriately creepy, and fits the time period nicely. The costumes look
great, especially the one Rose drags out from the TARDIS wardrobe. Even
the "ghosts" help out the uneasy Victorian feel.

The performances are also solid. For once, Billie Piper isn't the
standout; that would be Simon Callow channeling, well, Simon Callow as
Charles Dickens. Callow is absolutely perfect for the part, and is in fact
a Dickens enthusiast, so you can imagine how much fun he had playing his
favorite author. His arc is really wonderful and, though he's a bit
superfluous to the actual plot, Dickens is the most endearing character in
the story. Certainly more endearing than Eve Myles' Gwyneth, who isn't
quite actively annoying but never garners much in the way of sympathy
either. Alan David turns in a decent performance as Sneed, the nasty
undertaker.

Christopher Eccleston gets very little to do in this episode, and yet
he's still very good. His two best scenes show off his impressive range.
You totally buy that Eccleston the actor loves Charles Dickens during the
"number one fan" speech, which is at turns hilarious and adorable. And
yet, he displays extreme regret and disappointment when he's about to be
killed alongside Rose. So much loss of life falls on his shoulders
throughout this run, and its touching to see Eccleston feel so defeated.
His "I'm so glad I've met you" to Rose was impossibly charming, and my
favorite moment of the episode.

The villains? While not nearly as top-notch as Cassandra and her
spiders from The End of the World, the Gelth are
an interesting foe. I didn't realize until I re-watched the episode that
when the Gelth enter a living body, it dies and can't come back (Sneed and
Gwyneth both meet this fate); that's pretty creepy. And though it's fairly
obvious that they're going to end up being evil at the end, there's a
moment where the Gelth feel like a decent Steven Moffat villain, not all
bad but just misunderstood. Of course, this is Davies-era Who, so
forget that.

So I love the setting, I love Simon Callow, and I like the Gelth - so
what's the rub? Why don't I really like The Unquiet Dead? The
answer probably lies in Mark Gatiss' script. Not the specific writing
itself, as there are some really crackling one-liners ("Nobody calls me
Charlie"), but the overall story. It's just... kind of boring. I'm sorry,
but it is. Doctor and Rose go to 1869, dead people are walking, turns out
there are gas creatures, said creatures end up being evil, a house blows
up. Everyone goes home happy, except the dead people, who are dead. There
just isn't much here in the way of imagination, and that's what Who
does best. Everything here seems fairly derivative, and I think the story
could use more in the way of originality. Maybe that's a personal thing, I
don't know.

Regardless of how I feel towards it, The Unquiet Dead is
technically sound. Great production design, one of the better historical
acting jobs the show has seen from Simon Callow, and a nice creepy feel.
It still ends up being one of the weaker stories of Series 1, which is a
shame. There's a feeling that more could be mined from this story.